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 | | Laird Petersen | | | Inducted 2006 [Now Deceased] | | | Photo: Israel Wright | | Laird Petersen, 49, currently state Rep. Larry McKeon's chief of staff, for 25 years of volunteer and professional contributions to Chicago's LGBT communities, including fund-raising and administrative work to support social service, HIV/AIDS, and political organizations.
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| A Chicago native, Laird Petersen has
contributed 25 years of service to AChicago’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender (LGBT) communities and counts
more than $12 million he has raised for LGBT
community-based organizations. | |
| He joined the board of what was then called
Gay Horizons (now the Center on Halsted) in
1981 after volunteering for a couple of years
raising funds at special events. He served until
1987 but continued to raise funds for Horizons until 1992, when he was asked
to join the staff as Director of Development, Public Communications, and
Marketing. Under his leadership, Horizons’ finances and staff grew
exponentially from a deficit of $190,000 to a $1.2 million budget, while the
development staff grew threefold.
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| Concurrently, through enrollment in the National Institutes of Health’s
Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, he learned in the early 1980s of his HIV
infection. He joined the Chicago HIV Prevention Planning Group (HPPG) in
1993, and served in many leadership capacities through 1999, when once
again he was asked to become a staff member in the Chicago Department of
Public Health’s STD/HIV/AIDS Public Policy and Programs Division. Soon
after, he became the HPPG program director, advocating and mentoring
dozens of community members to become stewards for the city’s HIV
prevention grantmaking program. | |
| In 1997, Petersen joined the staff of the Illinois Federation for Human Rights
(now Equality Illinois). He has also served in the Illinois HIV Prevention
Community Planning Group, the Urban Coalition for HIV/AIDS Prevention
Services, and a Chicago community standards review panel; is a member of
the 2006 Chicagoland World AIDS Day Steering Committee; and co-chairs
the Chicago Forum on HIV and Aging. | |
| He became Director of Prevention Services at the AIDS Foundation of
Chicago in 2003. There, he organized meetings and training sessions for
groups from 15 to 1,500 persons, as well as conceiving and producing three
HIV prevention conferences. | |
| He is currently chief of staff to State Rep. Larry McKeon and manages the
district office. He has also volunteered in numerous community
organizations over the years. | |
| This biography is as of the induction date. It has not been updated. |
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